Sony has been dealing with the effects of a major hack from last week, and among the many leaked documents is a 25-page collection of Sony employee complaints that reveal even the people who make Adam Sandler movies hate Adam Sandler movies. Gawker combed through the complaints and highlighted some of the best digs at Sandler’s expense:
Be more focussed and ruthless in directing our resources to businesses that will sustain the long term health of SPE - networks, broadcast TV shows, new movie franchises, digital distibution By the same token, stop or reduce support for areas that have no more value (Sandler movies, DVD)
There is a general “blah-ness” to the films we produce. Althought we manage to produce an innovative film once in awhile, Social Network, Moneyball, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, we continue to be saddled with the mundane, formulaic Adam Sandler films. Let’s raise the bar a little on the films we produce, and inspire employees that they are working on the next Social Network. That said, there’s a strange dichotomy of encouraging us to be fiscally responsible, but then upper management allows certain talent and filmmakers to bleed us dry with their outlandish requests for private jets, wardrobe and grooming stylists- and are surprised when they are asked to work more than 5 hours to promote their film.
In TV and Theatrical, I hope management looks closely at the money spent on development and term deals to ensure efficiency. There are a lot of term deal personnel as well as creative personnel, yet we only release a dozen or so Columbia Pictures a year, for example. And will we still be paying for Adam Sandler? Why?
It is commenable that SPE understands/supports the importance of risk-taking, particularly in how the we pick films to greenlight. However, the studio needs to change deal structure that has been in place with Happy Madison, as this arrangement has disproportionately benefitted Adam Sandler and his team, relative to SPE.
There are other complaints about Sony making too many remakes, reboots, and “safe, soul-less movies and TV shows,” which is at least confirmation that Hollywood isn’t totally clueless about its lack of originality these days. Check out the rest of the leaked complaints over at Gawker.
